Julian's at the HeritageBern's Steak HouseSat.Julian's1208 S. Howard Ave.
Tampa
813-251-2421
800-282-1547 in Florida
Sat.$$$$ 1/2When President Bush was in Tampa last year, he dined with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at one of the nation's most celebrated restaurants.Which one was it?
The same restaurant rang the bells of The New York Times critic John Mariani, who described it as "the most remarkable restaurant in the entire world."
Which one was it?
When various wine aficionados compare the offerings of the world's best restaurants, the same Tampa dining establishment regularly sits atop the list, right up there with the venerable Tour d'Argent in Paris.
Which one is it?
The answer to all three questions: the incomparable Bern's Steak House.
A fixture since 1956 along South Howard Avenue in Hyde Park, the lifework of the late Bern Laxer and his wife, Gert, Bern's is a legendary restaurant unlike any other. With a reputation for culinary perfection, the freshest, organic ingredients grown at its own farm and a near-maniacal obsession with exacting service, it consistently draws an international panoply of sophisticated diners to our obscure little city.
Somehow, it has even seamlessly continued to offer superior fare and fine service, despite a potentially difficult management change following Bern Laxer's long illness and recent death. His son, David, now runs the business, apparently suffering from the same fanatical passion that drove his dad.
And in the last couple of weeks, the restaurant has unveiled its first serious menu changes in decades. Diners will find new china and cutlery, and 93 hip new selections, tested over the past four years by the restaurant's executive chef, Jeannie Pierola. The changes may also represent the restaurant's determination to return to the culinary forefront with a more modern take on food.
Oh, maybe Bern's doesn't fit the physical description of a paragon of dining bliss: It sort of has the air of a World War II bunker with its windowless, hulking presence, directly across the street from an old gas station, junked cars lounging out front. The restaurant's lobby, bedecked in tawdry red, is hung with weird oil portraits and populated with overblown sculpture.
But once you sit down to eat, the decor fades to eccentric irrelevance. With a wine list numbering a half-million or so vintages and 62 different cuts of fabulous aged, prime beef to choose from, it has always offered outstanding choices. But now, newly introduced dishes provide better fish and shellfish options, new cuts of veal and lamb, and in a notable departure for the steak house, even a vegetarian dinner ($17.95), which comprises a grilled eggplant "steak" served with sweet pepper agnolotti, roasted teardrop tomato salad and black olive oil.
Also, you can choose from new appetizers such as oyster beignets, several elegant new salads and a raft of new dressing. Try the new lobster bisque, plus a more interesting choice of side dishes, like truffle-roasted wild mushrooms and Hawaiian red salt-baked Okinawan sweet potatoes. There are 14 new accompanying sauces for beef and 19 for fish. Even the dessert menu is strutting new additions, like German chocolate cake and a jazzy citron berry tart.
On a recent foray there, we started with one of the new appetizers, a black truffle tenderloin steak Tartare ($10.95), a patty of raw steak ground with one of the rarest and most expensive fungi in the world. It looked just like any hamburger patty waiting for the grill, but the truffles imparted a luxurious flavor that went down smooth, like crêpe de chine, behind one of my favorite French wines, a 1985 Georges Deboeuf Beaujolais, priced very reasonably at $5.45 per glass or $24.95 per bottle.
A new soup is Maine lobster bisque ($8.50, bowl), its color a faint rose like the first blush of dawn, its texture rich with mushrooms, roasted corn, bits of bacon and chervil oil. Complex and accomplished, certainly, but not the best I've ever eaten; it needed more snap in the broth, as did the too-mild French onion soup au gratin ($5.50), a beloved standard of the restaurant. Also, I would have liked to order the bisque in a smaller, cup size, but it was only available by the bowl — why not consider the sensibilities of lighter eaters?
Bern's, however, has made up for the heavier items by fortifying its salad offerings. I loved the vibrant new tropical fruit salad ($7.95), a crisp mix of organic watercress, heart of palm, a juicy rainbow of tropical fruit peppered with pine nuts and dewy with an impressive, macadamia-vanilla bean vinaigrette dressing that pretty much blew me away. I shamelessly ate the dang thing right down to the plate. Though the dish is listed under "salads," it would also be a perfect entree for lighter eaters. That is, if diners are willing to forgo some of the restaurant's glamorous new main dishes.
Such entrees include a truly fabulous surf and turf ($35.95) — a charcoal-grilled, herb-crusted lamb chop paired with a salmon pailliard, set in a pool of memorably fabulous basalmic reduction sauce and accompanied by goat cheese potatoe purée, the freshest baby spinach, sizzling grilled figs and roasted pine nuts.
Or the spectacular new dish featuring a 6-ounce veal tournedo ($29.95) — two tender, one-inch pieces of meat cooked perfectly to a medium rare, enlivened with an amazing porcini port sauce. Most entrees come with French onion soup, salad, baked potato, onion rings and organic vegetables.
There aren't many places you're going to eat so well.
And we haven't even mentioned new side dishes, like truffle-roasted wild mushrooms ($7.95); various choices of spectacular mashed potatoes, flavored with shiitake green onion, Gorgonzola, wasabi, Dijon or crispy onion ($5.95); or steak house spinach, oven-dried tomatoes scattered with roasted garlic, white raisins and pine nuts ($6.95).
Bern's steaks, like its 6-ounce filet mignon ($25.40), continue to be among the very best you'll find anywhere, and its service continues to be nearly flawless — polite without being stiff, efficient without being obtrusive. The only complaint I could devise was that one night, our server neglected to bring the addictive, handmade "potato chips" that are supposed to come with every meal. Let's string him up!
FYI: Keep in mind when you are tipping that the restaurant adds a 12 percent service charge to the bill; diners are free to tip more if they choose. That means for me, a classic case of mathematical incompetence, that I reach for the digital calculator residing in my purse in order to figure the final tab. This I did before the final course, since diners typically adjourn upstairs to the Harry Waugh Dessert Room, which entails a second bill.
New offerings grace the dessert menu as well, like orange chocolate chip pecan pie ($7.95) or banana chocolate cheesecake ($7.50). We tried a new citron berry tart ($8.50), lemon curd with fresh berry compote, strawberry sorbet and a lime tuile. The filling was sanguine, a complex equation of tart and sweet, resting in a buttery pastry shell so firm that we had trouble cutting it with a fork. I guess the inventor of the Swiss Army Knife never envisioned his wartime tool might be used in such a refined setting.
A piece of German chocolate cake ($8.50) was delicate of crumb, heavy with chocolate ganache, and layered with thick frosting loaded with roasted pecans and coconut. Yummy, yes, it was, but I'll tell you, frankly, it did not change my feeling that Bern's desserts have always been its Achilles heel. They're of the same impeccable quality as all its food, but tend to be too predictable.
My favorite dessert, therefore, remains an arty wonder called the Blue Bern ($19.50 for two), a miniature sculpture in white chocolate of Evangeline, the lady wreathed in leaves that decorate all Bern's menus and serves as its advertising signature. It's such fun to slowly chip away at her headdress, taste the demurely closed eyes and savor the sleek curve of the neck, while contemplating how lucky we are to enjoy Bern's fantastic legacy.
Contact food critic Sara Kennedy at sara.kennedy@weeklyplanet.com or call 813-248-8888, ext. 116.
This article appears in Dec 25-31, 2002.